Literatura brytyjska
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Dark Ages – there were 7 kingdoms. The society was patriarchal (heptarch)
The God was the most supreme. Then the king was the most important in the country, in the family – the father was the most important figure.
The king and his warriors after the battles gather in a mead-hall (some kind of castle) and they celebrated victory. The king used to give his warriors jewellery so he was called the ring-given. During this celebrity gleemen used to play harps and wing.
Subject of Anglo-Saxon literature
Very universal: love, happiness, sadness, death.
The works were first oral. Then they were memorized by gleemen and written down by Christian monks.
Division of Anglo-Saxon literature
We can divided A-S works according to presents or absents of pagan elements. The first A-S works were mainly pagan. Late works were mainly Christian.
The oldest A-S poetry pagan with few Christian additions:
heroic epics - Beowulf, The Battle of Finansburg
elegies – The Seafarer, The Wander
charms and riddles.
Christian works inspired by the Bible or life of saints – Caedmon’s Hymn, The Dream of The Road
Heroic lays which described heroic deeds and priced them – The Settle of Maldom
Latin prose – Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum by Venerable Bede
A-S prose – Anglo-Saxon Chronicle of King Alfred the Great and His Scholars.
The Seafarer
Originally there was no division into the old sailor and the youth. The division comes from the publisher. The poem is based on the opposites, so we’ve got the old person and the young person. They both speak about the life on the sea but their vision is totally different.
The poem is a great example of alliteration.
The old sailor describes his life on the sea as heavy burden (brzemię). He compares his life to life on the land.
The old sailor symbolized experience and the young person in nonsense and lack of experience. The sea might be the symbol of freedom for a young man and dangerous for the old sailor.
Land is the prison for a young man and shelter (schronienie) for the old.
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24.05.09
The Dream of the Rood – sen krzyża / sen o krzyżu
Christian literature – it’s very religious poem. The poem is a story of crucifixion.
There are a lot of alliteration. The poem starts with the man who wants to tell a story. Tree is a symbol of cross but it is light, bright – it wasn’t the usual cross. It’s gold, precious – the symbol of power, king.
The speaker tells his dream. In which he saw unusual tree – shining, wearing in gold, jewellery. These unusual things are symbols of a power of the king – Jesus Christ.
Everybody admire the tree, people feel respect ion. The man said that he soiled the tree with his sins.
Then the cross started to speak. This is some kind of personification. Cross is personificate – the most specific the ability where the object speaks is prosopopeia.
We have to remember that this is a dream (vision convention). The poem is written in dream convention which means that the speaker falls asleep and he has a dream, and he tells this dream. This is literary convention.
The tree speaks about the past: about how he was a tree, how was cut and when he saw a King.
Usually in the poem is that the crucifixion is presented from the point of view of the cross. The cross accepted Christ body, it was a honour for this cross. The cross really respects Jesus and he’s honoured. Black nails might be a symbol of sins. They mocked us both – szydzili z nas – the cross identify himself with the suffering the Christ. The cross suffer as Jesus.. Nature accompanied with the events. When Christ died was darkness. There is a description of burying process . After Christ’s death the cross was worship, was adored. Almost the end is the cross’s speech. On the end of the poem there is a rhetorical question.
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11.X.2009
Bede
Christian work – hymn by Caedmon – author of this poem. This is the first song of Christ in English literature. Caedmon is said to be given a talent of praising God in his dream. God is called Maker of Kingdom, Father of Glory
Riddles
Riddles were some kind of entertainment during celebrations. Riddles used specific stylistic figure: prosopopeia (the object speaks in the first person and this is some kind of personification).
MIDDLE AGES 1066 – 1485 or 1516
1485 – the date of the publication of works by sir Thomas Mallory
1516 – the date connected with Tudor dynasty
The French became the main language in Britain. It was the time of Holy crusades. Church was the most important institution represent for education, law.
The majority work was anonymous because the authors didn’t want to gain fame.
One of the most important literature kinds were ballads. They were called traditional or folk ballads. First they were oral and then were written down after several centuries. So we can find several version of one ballad. The subject of ballads were taken from everyday life. These were tragic love, jealous, revenge disasters, adventures. Usually ballads contain dialogs and refrains with are called incremental repetition. Incremental repetition means that the refrain is repeated each time with slide changes. The most popular ballads are:
“Bonny Barbara Allan”
“Sir Patrick Spencer”
“Get up and bar the door”
Characteristic features of ballads
The form is simple and regular. The typical ballad stanca consist of 4 lines. There is a clear and definite beat. The meter is usually a iambic, the language is simple and literation is replaced by rhymes.
“Bonny Barbara Allan”
The main topic is the tragic love. The was the close division. Sir John loved the simple woman. Sir John was sick fell in love. Bed is a symbol of coffin. After dead they were buried near. The red and white roses grow with their graves and they intertwined (spleść się).
There is an instrumental repetition - Barbara Allan
There is a dialog – sir John and Barbara Allan talk together.
It was autumn – autumn is a symbol of death, sickness. Nature reflects the feelings of two lovers. The atmosphere is dark, gloomy, unpleasant.
The roses are the symbol of eternal love and the symbol of the fact that after death all people are equal.
Rhymes are not regular but they are in this ballad. The language is simple.
We can also see the a French influence (adie, adie).
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8.XI.2009
Pearl – it is written in dream vision convention (The speaker fell asleep and tells his dream). It’s unknown author, designated the "Pearl poet”. The poem is an example for alliteration: Pearl, delighting a prince’s pleasure.
The whole poem consist of 101 parts. Each stanza consists of 12 lines. Each stanza finished the same line.
This is an example of allegorical poem. The pearl is a daughter who died. There are some words which describe grave. There are 3 interpretation of pearl:
1 – as a pearl.
2 – as a daughter
3 – as a faith (wiara)
[ The title of the poem, Pearl, indicates something of high value to the audience. The pearl is indeed valuable to the father as he lives in misery as he mourns (opłakiwać) the death of his daughter however the poem discusses many aspects of worthiness.
In the first part the narrator, distraught (zrozpaczony) at the loss of his Pearl, falls asleep and begins to dream. In his dream he is transported to a beautiful country. Wandering by the side of a beautiful stream, he becomes convinced paradise is on the other shore. As he looks for a crossing, he sees a young maid whom he identifies as his Pearl. She welcomes him.
When he asks whether she is the pearl he has lost, she tells him he has lost nothing, that his pearl is merely a rose which has naturally withered. He wants to cross to her side, but she says it is not so easy, that he must resign himself to the will and mercy of God
He wonders whether she has replaced Mary as Queen of Heaven.
In the end he asks about the heavenly Jerusalem; she tells him it is the city of God. He asks to go there; she says that God forbids that, but he may see it. They walk upstream, he sees the city across the stream – described in a paraphrase of the Apocalypse. He also sees a procession of the blessed. Plunging into the river in his desperation to cross, he awakes from the dream and resolves to fulfill the will of God.] – z internetu.
William Langland – “The Visions of Piers Plowman”
It is written in two conventions:
dream-vision convention,
field full of folk.
We’ve got a speaker who falls asleep and he tells us his dream. In his dream he sees field full of folk, which means that he sees panorama of society - represented different classes and professions. He describes the people and he criticises them.
In the first part he criticises the entertainment industry – he criticises people who are jesters and jugglers = children of Judas because they make folk fools (money).
The next group of people who he criticises are those who worked in a civil serve. He says that those people serve the King but really they serve the King’s money.
He prises good deeds. The refers the religious: “That faith without deed is right nothing worth”. – the most important thing, the main idea of the poem.
Generally the poem shows the search true religious. It shows how to be religious person and how to reject material things. This is the criticism on society and institution of Church.
MEDIEVAL ROMANCE
Medieval romance was popular way of writing.
“Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” – long poem full of symbolism and presents supernatural features. It’s also anonymous poem written in alliterative verse. The story is simple but symbolised.
King Arthur and his knights celebrated Christmas at Camelot. They celebrated for 15 days. During the celebration came Green Knight who proposed to the king beheading game. But king though that was a very silly game. One of the king’s knight – Gawain volunteered to this game and he cut off the Green Knight’s head. But the Green Knight didn’t die. He put his amputee head on his neck and said that after a year he would find Gawain and then he will cut off Gawain’s head. During this year sir Gawain was travelling, praying and when the next Christmas approached, and sir Gawain knew that he admitted the Green Knight he wanted to find a Church but he found a castle. The owner of the castle – Bertilac – invited sir Gawain to spent several days in the castle. Bertilac was a hunter and he had a wife. Bertilac proposed sir G. a game – every evening they will exchange everything what they got during the day. Bertilac’s wife every day tried to seduce young knight but sir Gawain didn’t give in (ulegać). It turned out (okazało się) that Bertilac was a Green Knight, and it was a test. Bertilac spared Gawain’s life, and Gawain received a magic belt from Bertilac’s wife which is supposed to protect him from any weapon. Sir Gawain returned to Camelot and he told the story. The King decided to give similar belts to all his knights.
These belts are the symbol of friendship and brotherhoods. There are similar symbols in this story:
Green Knight – symbol of God
Bertilac’s wife – symbol of temptation (kuszenie)
Sir Gawain – symbol of ideal Medieval Knight (he’s loyal, brave, religious, honest) – he was loyal not only to his king but also to religious and to Bertilac who invited him.
King Arthur – symbol of ideal king (“but Arthur would not eat until all were served”)
The story shows that the human nature is the same for everyone. People are expose to different temptations.
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14.XI.2009
MEDIEVAL DRAMA
There are two kinds of Medieval drama:
Miracle plays
Morality plays.
Miracle plays - were based on the stories from the Bible or life of saints. They were known as Quaem Quaeritis? In Latin which mean: Who are you looking for? And they were performed on Corpus Christi Day. Usually they told the story of Mary who was looking for the Christ tomb. She met an angle who asked her: Quaem Quaeritis? Mary replaced she looking for the Christ grave and angel tells her the story of resurrection.
Other typical subjects of miracle plays were:
Creation of the world
The fall of man
Crucifixion
Judgement day
These plays were written by several people there were called guild members.
The plays were performed on special platforms or moving wagons.
The most popular miracle plays:
“Noah”
“The Second Shepherd’s Play”
Morality plays – this were allegorist which presented the struggle between protagonist (bohater) God and Devil.
The typical protagonist was mankind, everyman.
Among other figures are: angels, demons, death.
The typical morality plays are:
“The Castle of Perseverance”
“Everyman”
Everyman
The figures are personifications. They have human qualities (they talk). The story started the Messenger. In the speech of Messenger is very moralistic.
God describes people – he died for people but people forgot about him, they forgot God’s law. God isn’t here merciful (miłosierny). He is angry.
God tells Death to go and bring Everyman to a confession. Death comes to Everyman and Everyman is surprised. He wasn’t prepared for death.
Good Deeds is the only person who can accompany him. Good Deeds rises from the ground but they are weak - this is an allegory.
The names of characters are allegorical. Sins make good deeds be lied to the ground. Everyman reflects the views of Medieval Church, which is:
Life is a struggle between god and evil
Salvation (zbawienie) is the central purpose of life
Things of the world are insignificant. The Church is a necessary guide to salvation. God is presented as an angry man, and human is presented as sinful.
Geoffrey Chauces – The Canterbury Tales
These tales were supposed to include 120 stories told by pilgrims. The pilgrims were supposed to God from Southwort to Canterbury, which was the place of martyrdom (męczeństwo) of Thomas Becket. There are supposed to be 30 pilgrims and each of them was supposed to tell 2 stories on his way to Canterbury and 2 stories of his way back. The structure of The Canterbury Tales is complex, this is a Chinese box narration (narracja szkatułkowa) – there is 1 primary narrator who tells the main story and secondary narrators who are pilgrims and who tell their stories. The pilgrims are both: the characters and the narrators.
Pilgrims describes themselves. They are not presented by the narrator. They are introduce by the narrator.
In this way Chauces achieved so called interpretative freedom, which means that the narrator doesn’t estimate the characters but the reader does.
The General Prologues – przewodnik
The story starts in April. The speaker tells when it is. The main narrator is sitting in Toward Inn and he is ready to take the pilgrims to Canterbury. The people of all kinds is the panorama of English society. Those are the people from different classes and different professions .
The first person who the main narrator describe is the Knight (line40). He was noble man and he loved the way of chivalry (line 49). The Knight travelled a lot. We took part in many wars and he is an example of ideal medieval knight – experienced and braved.
The next character is a Squire – his son – a lover and a soldier, very young and very handsome – he was an ideal man.
Prioress (przeorysza) – she was an ideal woman. (124 line), she was well-taught at table.